I’ve been asked several times recently by friends (particularly my new friends at the Inspired by Jason Vale group on Facebook – come and say hello, by the way; new members are approved very quickly as our leader Donna is very on the ball!) about where to begin when you’re interested in raw food.

In fact, the conversation off-Facebook often starts with another question – something along the lines of “what exactly do you mean by raw?” – so before I go into sharing all the resources I’ve collected over the past year, let’s quickly touch on the principles of eating rawly.

My understanding of the basic principles of a raw lifestyle (try not to think of it as a diet, because that’ll put you off before you even start) is that it’s fundamentally to do with the way our bodies use food, and about energy. What follows is a very simplified explanation – there are links below for those of you that really want to understand the science behind a raw lifestyle.

Whenever you eat food, your body has to use energy in digesting it. Energy that could be better used elsewhere, like doing your work or housework, or even functioning on a basic, healthy level. Some foods are easier to digest; others, much harder – so the amount of energy used in digesting foods can vary.

We’re often told by scientists and health experts, through the media, that fruit and vegetables are really healthy. They contain all sorts of essential vitamins and minerals that our bodies need in order to function. It’s quite widely known by now, I think, that overcooking vegetables kills a lot of these nutrients and you end up pouring them down the drain in the water the veg has been boiled in, which means they’re going to waste and you’re not getting any benefit from them (hello, Mum). So, we’re told to only lightly boil – or even better, steam – our veg.

What we’re usually not told in the mainstream media, however, is that food also contains enzymes, which help our bodies to digest the food once it gets into our systems. And heating foods above about 115F (or thereabouts) destroys these enzymes, making food harder to digest. And thus, our bodies waste precious energy on the digestion process, instead of using it to fuel our work, our play, and our bodies’ natural healing processes.

When we talk about a raw lifestyle, then, we’re talking about a much healthier approach to what we eat (which in a raw lifestyle is usually vegan, though some people do eat raw dairy products), which involves eating food in as close to its natural state as possible, so that the enzymes can do their jobs and we can enjoy feeling energetic and alive. Jason Vale devotees will recognise the phrase “low human intervention foods” – this is the type of food that’s best for you, on the whole.

Does that mean raw foodists only eat salad?

Absolutely not!

A raw approach to food, in my experience, forces you to be really creative with your food (unless you’re happy eating nothing but salad, in which case I admire you and pity you in equal measure ). If you’ve visited this blog before, you’ll know that I don’t eat raw all of the time; I like to eat raw and cooked food (in fact there’s not much I won’t eat, as long as it’s not overly processed). I enjoy cooking, most of the time, and I like to create meals that are as enjoyable to make as they are to eat. But I’m very easily bored, so believe me when I say that if eating rawly involved nothing but salad, I would not be doing it. I mean, I enjoy the occasional salad, but too much of anything very quickly becomes boring, so I like to really experiment in the kitchen.

If it’s not all salad, what do raw foodists eat?

Basically – raw versions of whatever you eat, a lot of the time! Raw foodists have learned to be super-creative with their ‘uncooking’, and some of the links I’ll share towards the end of this article will point to raw chefs of amazing talent, whose creations are not just healthy but look and taste absolutely amazing. Imagine having cheesecake for breakfast; if it’s raw cheesecake, you can do that without even a shred of guilt, because the ingredients are all in as close to their healthy, natural state as they possibly can be – and of course, a raw diet eschews processed sugar and bad fats (using natural sweeteners and healthy fats instead), so they’re naturally helpful towards maintenance of a healthy weight.

Here’s a few creative things I’ve seen and tried, since I’ve been interested in raw food:

common raw ingredients

“Spaghetti” made from courgettes, parsnips or carrots

“Noodles” made from kelp (a type of seaweed)

Creamy desserts and cakes made from nuts, seeds, fruit, coconut oil and other amazing ingredients you’d never think could be used to make such amazing creations

Chocolate that’s good for you and helps you lose weight!

Milk and ice cream made from nuts and seeds

Biscuits, breads, wraps and crispbreads made from seeds

Mayonnaises, dips and sauces made from nuts and seeds

Quiches made from nuts, vegetables and nutritional yeast

Cheese made from nuts, probiotic capsules and nutritional yeast

Felafel and burgers made from nuts and seeds

“Crisps” (“chips” if you’re from the US) made from dehydrated leafy veg

Seriously – the list is endless. These are just a few examples of the amazing things I’ve seen. A little ‘alchemy’ is involved – understanding the properties of the raw ingredients, how they behave under certain conditions (like blending, soaking, dehydrating etc), and how they interact with each other – but this is very quickly learned by just following a few recipes written by someone else.

There are special techniques and equipment involved, which you may not have heard of before, but again these are easily learned. For example, it’s best to soak most nuts and seeds before eating them. This is because they contain “enzyme inhibitors” which prevent the seeds/nuts from rotting before they have a chance to sprout. This makes them difficult to digest – which possibly explains why, when you’ve eaten a couple of slices of seeded bread, you’ll notice the seeds sometimes come out the other end looking exactly the same as when you ate them! By soaking nuts and seeds, these enzyme inhibitors are washed away, meaning our bodies can efficiently digest the food without using up our precious stores of energy.

Speaking of energy – I’ve heard it said several times that even a 50% raw diet can add 2-4 hours of energy to your day. Every day. Imagine that!

I don’t want to turn this into a gigantic tome about the many raw food preparation techniques that are used, or about all the different types of kitchen equipment raw foodists use; these are for future articles, which are on my list of articles to write for Forty-Something Fatso over the next few weeks.

No. What I want this article to be is a very quick introduction to the principles of a raw lifestyle, and an opportunity to share some of the many links I’ve bookmarked over the past year, which will help readers to explore raw in more detail if they feel they’d like to do so.

So let’s move on to a list of resources, which will include experts, chefs, courses, where to shop and sources of useful information. Here goes:

People

First up is a lovely lady I connected with on Facebook last year, Rebecca Kane – I absolutely adore this lady, she really is one of the ‘good guys’ of this world. Rebecca’s website is Shine On Raw, and through this website she’s shared tons of wonderful recipes, ebooks and articles about raw food and food preparation techniques. Rebecca is just about to launch a 30-day program for people wanting to learn about raw food. If you sign up to this course you’ll get your hand held by Rebecca throughout the 30 days, with a fantastic range of course materials including a recipe book, individual recipe cards, information about techniques and equipment, and a community area where you can connect with fellow students. This course costs £97 but if you’re among the first 30 people to sign up, you’ll only pay £67. Click for Raw Food Deliciousness.

Another very lovely lady – who I’ve not had any personal contact with, but who I follow avidly on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere – is Kate Magic. Kate has over 20 years’ experience as a raw food expert, and if you want to know anything at all about a superfood, Kate’s your gal. Kate spends a lot of time teaching raw classes all around the world – it is my dream to attend one of these, one day, in some beautiful sunny far-flung place! Kate is also co-owner of Raw Living, a highly ethical company selling superfoods and other healthy products. Raw Living is my preferred supplier of superfoods, because Kate and her business partner Chris are sticklers for quality and I absolutely trust their judgement in this area. If Kate has OK’d a product, I trust it! A very useful resource for the raw curious is the ‘where to start‘ page at Raw Living. There’s also a fantastic FREE ebook you can download there – just register your email address and it’ll be sent to you. I found this book extremely useful when I was starting out, because it explains so much in such a small space, and contains some wonderful (and simple!) raw recipes you can get started with.

Juicing is an important part of a raw lifestyle, and when it comes to juicing I can’t think of anyone more knowledgeable than Jason Vale, the Juice Master. As well as being an absolute guru in the field of juicing and a highly accomplished author and addiction expert, Jason is a truly delightful man with an infectious smile, an off-the-scale bubbly personality, and an army of women all around the world that would drop their drawers for him in the bat of an eyelid. Or is that just me? Jason’s website is an absolute wealth of information, and is also a good source of healthy equipment, foods and supplements. He also personally answers many of the questions on his Facebook page – he is everybody’s friend and is the least up-their-own-arse person I think I’ve ever encountered anywhere!

If you want to be a bit adventurous and try out some gourmet raw recipes, look no further than Russell James, The Raw Chef. Some of his recipes are seriously astonishing. His raw carrot cake is beyond wonderful. He also personally replies to comments on his website, is very approachable, and very nice (are you seeing a pattern yet? Raw foodists are lovely. It’s all the good food that goes into their bodies. Seriously). Russell is the master of turning everyday ingredients into works of art. His website is well-stocked with amazing recipes, and there are others that are harder to find, like this macadamia cheese recipe that I accidentally stumbled across on Google (definitely one to bookmark – I still haven’t got around to making this yet, but I fully intend to!)

Finally, on my list of raw foodists that I really, really pay attention to (other raw foodists are available, by the way) there’s queen of the smoothies, Alynn Davis of Raw Dazzle. Alynn is very sweet, highly energetic, and if her Facebook page is to be believed, she pretty much lives on smoothies (I’m sure she doesn’t, but she sure does share a lot of superfood smoothie recipes – usually accompanied by an exclamation of “YEOWZA!” – she’s that kinda gal!) Alynn is a very experienced raw chef and teacher, and you can ask pretty much anything about raw food on her Raw Dazzle page on Facebook and she’ll know the answer. Alynn very kindly writes articles about raw and healthy living for one of my clients, Marigot Health Retreat, which I share with the Jasonettes on Facebook from time to time.

So, these are the main people I follow closely on social media and whose websites I visit regularly for inspiration and information. I highly recommend following them all!

Now onto stuff I’ve bookmarked. This will include a variety of subjects, like why coconut oil is amazing, where to find great raw recipes, and so on. Hope you find them useful!

Coconut oil

I have quite a collection of links about coconut oil – here are the best ones:

Feeling a dire need to rid myself of all the unhealthy rubbish I ‘fed’ myself with over Christmas – and that’s without the months of abuse before December even started – I decided to embark upon the world’s biggest juice detox with the very funny and lovely Jason Vale and more than 20,000 other people from 40+ countries around the world that feel the need to do something smart for their bodies.

Now, I did actually do this same detox (which is Jason’s Juice Master 7lbs in 7 Days, in fact) back last year. While I did manage to get through the whole week without caving in or killing anybody, I did find I was very hungry. In fact, I swore never to do it again, but here I am, glutton for punishment, giving it a second go.

I will try to add to this ‘diary’ every day; but only if I have something to say. What I mean is, there’s no point saying every day: “Drank some juices, felt fine, went to bed” – I think readers will probably demand a bit more than that! So if I don’t have anything more to say than “drank some juices, felt fine, went to bed” I think it’s better to not update the post. Make sense? Good. Let’s crack on…

Day 1: Monday 7 January 2013

Had a stupidly late night last night – sat up ’til 2am smoking all the rest of my fags, because I didn’t want there to be any left over, tempting me (and I wasn’t going to chuck them away either, before you ask). So I got up a bit later than planned this morning – 8am instead of 7 – which meant already I’d cocked up a bit on the juicing front, because the first drink is hot water with lemon at 7 followed by the first juice proper at 8. Oops. Still, by the 11am juice I was back on track, and have managed to have all my juices on time since then (well, there are still two to go before the night’s over, but I’m sure I won’t be late drinking those).

It’s funny how the mind works. Quite often I’ll go through the day forgetting to eat, or only grazing on little bits and pieces here and there; I’m used to being hungry and ignoring it (rightly or wrongly, it’s what I do. Don’t beat me up over it. See, I did tell you I’d fallen back into bad habits). So why is it that today I actually noticed my hunger for a change? Although I’ve not felt really hungry – y’know, what we call starving but of course is nothing like actually starving – I have definitely noticed a rumble in my tummy today. And I’m fairly certain that’s because I know there will be no solid food this evening. On a normal work day, I can easily ignore hunger during the day because I know there will be a good solid meal in the evening. But today, there are no solids, only juices for a whole week – so perhaps my hunger is just psychological. Any road up, it won’t kill me. Just drive me mad a little, perhaps.

The overwhelming theme of today has been exhaustion. Not in a sleep deprived way though; the exhaustion I’ve felt today has been the sort of tiredness you get in early pregnancy, when your body just packs up and refuses to do anything else, and you have no choice but to fall asleep. That’s the sort of tiredness I’ve been feeling all day, and nothing will shift it. I fell asleep at my desk, with one of the cats (the heaviest one, of course) sleeping across my chest, making me feel as if I was suffocating. It was really hard to wake back up again. I still feel very woozy – like I’ve just come round after being unconscious or under anaesthetic – I just can’t seem to shake it. I’m guessing it’s a detox symptom so I’m sure it’ll pass. Early night for me, I think.

Haven’t exercised. Haven’t had the energy. And exercise is a bit of an alien concept to me, if I’m honest. Dragging myself out of the chair is harder than all the fasting and not smoking in the world, when you’re me.

Other than that – I feel absolutely fine. The juices are tasty, although I’m getting a little bit sick of the taste and smell of pineapple already (only day one as well – bah) – and even stopping smoking, which today I’ve done with no outside help at all (no hypnotism, no Jason Vale app in the end because I forgot to watch it last night, no nicotine replacement or electronic ciggies, no homeopathy even… no, this time it’s all just me, amazingly) isn’t bothering me as much as I thought it would.

This is only day one, though… let’s see if I’m as cheerful about it this time tomorrow…

Day 2 – Tuesday 8 January 2013

A very difficult day today. Realised that stopping smoking and doing the juice feast together was a bad idea – felt so tired and emotional, and had another day of not being able to do anything other than snooze at my desk. And each snooze didn’t leave me feeling refreshed, just more tired.

Something had to give, so I started smoking again. I know I was pushing myself too hard by stopping smoking and doing the juice detox at the same time – it’s just silly, removing all the things that give me pleasure (eating and smoking) at the same time – it needs to be done in stages. Funny enough, as soon as I started smoking again (mid-afternoon), I cheered right up and breezed through the rest of the day’s juices without complaint (yes, that’s the trick nicotine plays on you…). Had an hour or so in the bath, reading and relaxing, and felt fantastic for the rest of the evening.

Yes, I failed on the stopping smoking – this time. It’s a shame, but there you have it, and not really that much of a surprise. I do find stopping smoking is less stressful if I’m able to nibble my way through cravings – and I don’t mean sweets and bad foods necessarily, but being able to eat a handful of kale chips, a piece of raw chocolate or some other healthy snack would definitely take my mind off things – so once all the detoxing is done and I’m back on solid food, I’ll give it another go.

I’ve not been craving food that much, but when I do it’s healthy things I’m craving (remember that until I started to develop bad habits when I went on holiday last year, I ate mostly raw during the day and reasonably healthy cooked meals in the evening). I’d love a nice bowl of kale chips, or some of the raw chocolate that’s left in the fridge from Christmas, or the Thai-style raw stir-fry recipe I developed last summer. In fact, I’ve ordered in some kelp noodles ready for next week when I go back onto solid food, because that’s one of the first meals I’m planning to eat. I don’t fancy chips or sugar or rich sauces; just the healthy foods that I know keep me feeling on top of the world.

Day 3 coming up tomorrow and one of the juices has a whole 200ml of yoghurt in it… can’t wait! Never thought I’d be so excited about yoghurt!

Day 3 – Wednesday 9 January 2013

Feeling much, MUCH better today. Being able to smoke makes a big difference. Yeah I know, I know – it’s a toxin, I shouldn’t be doing it – but doing the detox and the not smoking at the same time was driving me mad.

Felt much more alert today, no drowsiness at all. And best of all, the sun was out – I was starting to forget what it looked like, so was delighted to see it shining there in the sky today. Took advantage of the warm, bright, dry weather by taking our dog, Huwci, down to the beach (about a 10 minute walk from here) for a game of football. Ended up being down there for about an hour and a half, running around like a loon on a big stretch of wet sand, just me and the dog. It felt a bit like coming out of a long quarantine, having all that open space and fresh air around me. Huwci even had a little swim (he didn’t have much choice really; he’d managed to knock his ball into the sea and it was in danger of being swept away, and there was no way I was going in the icy Irish Sea on a brisk January day to retrieve it!)

When I got back indoors I made my ‘Passion for Juice Master’ smoothie, which is a very simple one: pineapple, apple, natural yoghurt, a small piece of banana and half a teaspoon of spirulina. It doesn’t sound like much, but oh my DAYS it was delicious! I didn’t want it to end!

Slightly headachy this evening but that’s not down to the detox – it’s all the mad running around on the beach, followed by being hunched over my laptop, followed by driving in the dark (the headlights of other cars make me squint) to the supermarket to pick up my days 4-7 ingredients. Did I feel a bit strange, buying four pineapples, three cucumbers and 30-odd apples? Not at all! If the checkout girl thought it was odd, she didn’t say so. I also picked up a box of peppermint teabags as a change from the usual nettle or lemon and ginger infusions that I’ve been having in the evenings. I’m a bit late with tonight’s 8pm juice (just drinking it now, at 9pm) so I’m going to guzzle that now while I watch the live eviction on Celebrity Big Brother. But I will end by saying that this time round I’m rather enjoying my 7lbs in 7 days detox, and am not at all bothered that I have another four days of just juice. I’m in no rush to finish this detox (the trick is not to keep telling yourself you miss ‘food’ – what you’re drinking *is* food, it’s delicious, and it’s healthy so there’s no deprivation) and I’m looking forward to the next phase, which is the 14-day ‘turbo’ plan (if you’re interested in trying this, you’ll find a link to the book in the Jason Vale carousel under Day 1).

Day 4 – Thursday 10 January 2013

I didn’t get the ‘juice high’ that’s supposed to happen around about now, but I have felt pretty serene, calm and content; maybe that’s my unique version of the high? In any event, pleased to be at Day 4 without killing anyone, though I am starting to crave a nice cup of tea.

Had a lunchtime game of ‘balloon volleyball’ in the garden with the dog, which was fun.

At 5pm disaster struck.

I was making my juice when the juicer started making a hideous noise. Turned out the bottom part of the feeder chute had cracked and a couple of large pieces had come off, meaning there was nothing holding the fruit and veg in place while it juiced – so I was getting tons of waste in the pulp box but very little juice (about half as much as I should have got). Luckily I had bought the juicer at Argos rather than online, and it was still under warranty, so I’ll be able to exchange it for a new one in the morning.

Missing my 8pm juice left me pretty hungry, so I had a banana. First solid food for four days – felt nice to chew for a change!

Day 5 – Friday 11 January 2013

Went to Argos first thing and asked for my juicer to be exchanged. Rather brilliantly, they did it without any questions. I simply handed it over, said I needed it exchanged, she said “OK love” and got on with it. So I got a brand new juicer with a new 1-year guarantee… nice!

More fun and games in the garden with the dog… tried to play balloon volleyball but the wind kept stealing the balloons, much to the dog’s distress. When we ran out of balloons we played a bit of football.

Nipped into the supermarket and bought some decaf Earl Grey and some unsweetened soya milk. The craving for a cup of tea was getting too much. Bit naughty and I know Jason wouldn’t approve, but today I’m starting to feel really fed up with living on nothing but juice. I’m really weary of it. I don’t want to stuff my face with takeaways, cakes and alcohol; far from it – I want food, but healthy food. The juice really isn’t cutting the mustard now. Dewi had a microwave curry for dinner tonight, and although I usually don’t like microwave food, the smell was making me drool. Roll on Monday when I can start eating real food again! The thought of a bowl of brown rice is almost unbearable – of all the things I could crave, brown rice is the one I’m looking forward to, bizarrely. Already know what I’m having for dinner on Monday night (brown rice, salad, and king prawns cooked with garlic, chillies and lemon); in fact, have planned out all my evening meals up to and including Thursday night, which is shopping night. Planning a raw food preparation day on Sunday, so that when Monday comes there’s plenty of healthy, delicious food in the fridge waiting to be eaten.

Day 6 – Saturday 12 January 2013

Starting to feel desperate for food now. Any food will do. It’s not so much that I’m hungry – I’m just sick of juice. I know all the juices have different ingredients and thus, different flavours; but they’re still juices at the end of the day, and they’re just not satisfying me any more. They’re filling the physical gap left by the lack of solid food, but not the mental/emotional one. Still not craving anything unhealthy, but I’d love to have a nice solid hot meal.

Spent several hours catching up with the ironing; the ‘mynydd smwddio’ (‘ironing mountain’) was getting a bit out of control again, so I stood in front of the TV and did the lot (about 4 hours all told). Watched ‘Bride and Prejudice’ which I’d got for Christmas but hadn’t yet seen. I love hearing ‘Bollywood’ music, and at the point I became conscious that I was jiggling my wobbly bum around in time to the music, I also became conscious that I was being watched. I turned around and looked behind me; there, at the window, was a gang of young boys pissing themselves laughing at the sight of a forty-something fatso shaking her booty to Bollywood music while ironing the sheets. Well that really set me off… couldn’t stop laughing, and was still giggling when Dewi got back from helping his parents fix their roof. Told him what had happened and we both pissed ourselves laughing all over again. Hilarious!

The real test tonight was going to the pub for a friend’s birthday drinks. I drove (so that would stop me drinking any alcohol in any case) but of course being on a detox, I couldn’t drink anything at the pub other than water. Actually, that didn’t bother me at all (I’m not much of a drinker); the hardest part was the lovely aroma of roast lamb that was wafting around the place. Now that really *was* hard. But watching people being drunk while I was stone cold sober was very interesting, I must say. Amazing too how many people seemed utterly scandalised that I’ve lived for a week on nothing but juice (all the usual “you know it won’t work, right?” and “that can’t be good for you!” and other such totally expected remarks. But despite the funny looks and know-all comments, I got through it without too many problems. Although of course, I still can’t wait for the juices to be over with and real food to be back on the menu.

Day 7 – Sunday 13 January 2013

Spent most of the day in the kitchen, ‘uncooking’ a selection of lovely raw food ready for tomorrow. I made a pint of almond milk, and used the pulp from the almonds to make Kate Magic’s lovely baobab brownies (looking forward to one of those tomorrow!). I also made a batch of raw granola, using Crazy Raw Vegan’s fantastic recipe – tomorrow’s breakfast, after a glass of green juice with added spirulina, probiotics, wheatgrass, barleygrass and milk thistle, will be a bowl of granola with almond milk. Oh and I made a batch of Kate’s delicious ‘brazilliant kale chips”, which I couldn’t resist a sneaky taste of.

As I write, Dewi is making a curry from scratch, and the smells wafting into the living room from the kitchen are unbearably good. The lack of food is now becoming unbearable, but it would be stupid to give up with only an evening left to go. I will no doubt have a teaspoon of the sauce to see what it tastes like (he’s following a recipe neither of us have ever used before, so I want to see how good it tastes) but I won’t cave and have a portion. No, I will be a good girl and have my final juice of the day – of the week – and look forward to real food tomorrow.

I’ve had a good think about what this week’s menus are going to look like, and have decided that I’ll start my days with green juice with added bits as described above, followed by a small bowl of granola and almond milk. For lunch, I’ll have a superfood smoothie – raspberries, bananas, purple corn extract, camu camu powder, maca, lecithin, water and vanilla. For snacks there are raw brownies, kale chips, home made raw chocolates (including some lovely white chocolates with home-dried rasperries, which are divine). And dinners on Monday and Tuesday will revolve around brown rice and salad, while Wednesday and Thursday will be all about the raw Thai-style stir-fried veg with kelp noodles.

Final diary entry tomorrow, when we’ll see what the results of all this suffering are!

Day 8 – Monday 14 January 2013

Could hardly wait to weigh and measure myself this morning! Jumped on the scales as soon as I got up, and here’s the long-awaited (by me anyway) results:

Weight lost: 7lbs

Inches lost: 4.5 (combination of bust, waist and hips)

Body fat lost: 1 percentage point

Absolutely delighted with the results! So pleased, in fact, that I’m going to change my Facebook profile picture to a new one (which I’ll take later in the week) which is a little less unflattering! My current Facebook profile pic is one that a friend of mine took just before Christmas, which I absolutely hate. It’s a profile view and my fifteen chins are sagging down unashamedly. It’s absolutely hideous. One of the worst photos I’ve ever seen of myself, and Dewi (who usually offers a sympathetic opinion on things like that) even said he hates it and can’t wait for me to change it. So, I’ll wait until the weekend when I know I’ll be wearing makeup, take a new photo and also film my 30-60-second video to send in to Jason Vale (there’s £10k worth of fantastic prizes up for grabs, so I’d be daft not to really!)

Although this entry is dated Monday, I’m actually writing it on Wednesday evening. Since Monday morning I’ve been constantly distracted (in the nicest possible way) by a new Facebook group created by one of my fellow juicers from last week, for those of us who knew we’d miss chatting amongst ourselves on Jason’s page (we thought it’d be a bit rude to keep the conversation going there, distracting this week’s batch of new recruits). Spending so much time speaking to these wonderful, enthusiastic people has put a new fire in my belly where healthy eating and keeping this website up to date are concerned; they’re all so wonderfully keen to know more about healthy eating choices – especially raw food – I feel really inspired to have regular ‘kitchen days’ where I can come up with new healthy recipes to share with anyone who’s interested, and to share more information about some of the healthy ingredients we’ve been discussing (in particular, coconut oil- an article about which I’ve been threatening to write for the past year).

So doing this week of juice feasting has given me so much more than an internal cleanse. I’ve made new friends; I’ve rediscovered my passion for raw and healthy food; I’ve rediscovered my passion for writing; and, along the way, I’ve shed the equivalent of 14 packs of butter in just seven days. Thank you, Jason, for what you’ve done; you’ve brought me back to life, and I’ll always be grateful for it.

]]>http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/worlds-biggest-juice-detox-my-detox-diary/feed/5You are what you eat: an epiphanyhttp://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/you-are-what-you-eat-an-epiphany/
http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/you-are-what-you-eat-an-epiphany/#commentsThu, 03 Jan 2013 11:35:49 +0000http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/?p=145

Like many people, I’ve over-indulged over the Christmas period. I’ve eaten all sorts of crap that a few months ago nothing would have persuaded me to touch.I’ve spent too much time sitting on the sofa doing online shopping, playing computer games and watching TV. I’ve basically turned into Waynetta Slob.

In fact, this is a slippery slope that I’ve been on since the end of August; over the past four months I’ve dropped a lot of good habits and replaced them with bad ones, and I’ve noticed the difference in not only my body, but in my personality too. I don’t like what I’m becoming, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually too, so it’s time for a change…

If, like me, you’ve ever read anything by Shazzie, Kate Magic or any of the other movers and shakers in the world of raw food that talk about ‘high vibrational foods’ and the effect that a raw lifestyle can have on your personality and spirituality, and thought “what a load of hippy-dippy bollocks”, I’m here to tell you that it turns out they were right. Stupid, stupid Debs for not sussing this out sooner.

I’ve always known – or at least suspected – that what I eat affects my mood quite dramatically.

There was a period a couple of years ago when I had a lot of personal problems to deal with. The biggest of these was money, and without going into too much detail I’ll just say that money was so tight for a while, we had to feed ourselves as cheaply as possible and couldn’t afford to eat as much fresh food we should. I won’t go into a rant about how disgraceful it is that it’s cheaper to buy processed crap like chicken kievs (which contain very little chicken anyway) than it is to buy fresh meat, fish, fruit and veg; that’s a different blog post in itself, and I have quite a radical theory about it which I’ll share one of these days. Suffice to say that of necessity we were eating all the types of food that I have always loathed, and it really affected me.

To cut a long story short, my diet was appalling, and I was miserable. I was worried about money and my other problems, certainly; but deep down, I knew my misery was mainly the result of eating badly. Intuition with a dash of common sense told me that what I was putting into my body was affecting my mind and spirit. A poor diet is known to be connected with depression (it’s well documented; do a quick search and see for yourself), but I’d say it actually goes deeper than that… in terms of personality, I think you really are what you eat.

Let me explain that.

During the ‘lean years’ when my diet was, of necessity, very poor, I was miserable and could burst into tears at the drop of a hat. Dewi (my husband) and I argued a lot, over the stupidest things. I was grumpy, moody, sarcastic and snappy. I was unpredictable; my mood could change in an instant. I’d lost so much of my former sparkle (I’d always been really bubbly before), I hardly recognised myself any more. I really disliked myself, what I’d become, but felt powerless to do anything about it.

During the middle of 2011, things started to get better financially. Around this time I started seeing Heather, a local homeopathic practitioner, for help with my uterine fibroids. With a little more money in my pocket I was able to start improving my diet, reintroducing all the fresh produce I’d craved for so long, and I gradually started feeling better. Heather gave me loads of really useful advice about diet and lifestyle, and it was through her that I first heard about raw chocolate. I was fascinated, and as is my wont I did a ton of research, and discovered that not only was there such a thing as raw chocolate, but a whole lifestyle based around raw food, superfoods and natural supplements.

I became really immersed (perhaps a little obsessed) with raw living, and between January and August 2012 I amassed a ton of ingredients, kitchen equipment, books, online resources and friends that would see me through eight wonderful months of living a roughly 50% raw lifestyle.

Here comes the part where I actually explain what I said I was going to explain (sorry, I have a tendency to ramble!).

Yes, I noticed that my health was much improved while I was eating so healthily. My skin looked fabulous, I had tons of energy (and let me tell you, I am one of the laziest people I’ve ever met – so the extra energy was a real eye-opener) and I felt like I glowed with health. I stopped getting headaches, my menstrual cycle became a bit more reliable (remember, I have uterine fibroids so my cycle has a mind of its own), and I felt on top of the world physically. My weight was also becoming more controllable: I lost about a stone and a half (20lbs/9kg) and kept it off.

But the biggest change I saw was not in my body, but in my personality.

It’s not easy to explain, but I was generally a nicer person. I don’t think I’ve ever been downright horrible, but that’s not for me to say I suppose. I did notice however that the more raw I ate, I became more positive than I’ve ever been. I was kinder, more patient, more loving, extremely cheerful and upbeat, rarely argued with Dewi, never snapped or made sarcastic comments, and generally felt more connected to every living thing on the planet. This, I think, is what the raw gurus are talking about when they describe certain foods as being ‘high vibrational’ – they affect you spiritually, making you a better person. I saw it in other people in the raw community; something that really fascinated me about all these people living a raw lifestyle was how incredibly nice they all were, and I started to feel that perhaps I was becoming like them.

Since the end of August my raw/superfood intake has declined very steeply, and I’m noticing things about myself that I really don’t like.

I didn’t necessarily notice the changes while they were happening (it probably happened gradually), but the other day I had a bit of an epiphany.

Dewi and I were in the car, driving home from a shopping trip, when I suddenly made the connection (I can’t remember what prompted it – I think perhaps I was talking about my intention to join the juice detox for the sake of my weight). I turned to him and said: “I’m going to go back to eating a lot of raw food in the new year, because I’ve just realised that I was a much better person when I was 50% raw. I’ve started to be snappy and sarcastic again; I’m becoming moody and grumpy, dissatisfied, selfish, materialistic and impatient. I am, aren’t I?” And Dewi said, very quietly: “Yes, you are.”

Far from upsetting me, this was actually all the confirmation I needed of what I already knew, deep down: I am a better person when I’m eating well.

I feel very fortunate to have been given this chance to make important changes to my lifestyle. I can’t describe how glad I am that I have been able, without any prompting from anyone else, to recognise that my diet is again making me into a person that I dislike. The universe has thrown me a lifeline, and I’m going to grab it with both hands and be the person I want to be; not just for my sake, but for the sake of those around me.

And that’s where Jason Vale comes in.

On Monday 7th January 2013 the World’s Biggest Juice Detox begins, aiming to get 20,000 people from around the world spending a week supporting each other as they flush the rubbish out of their bodies and replace it with the best nourishment the planet has to offer.

I’ll be taking part. I know it will be difficult; I did it for a week last year, and found it very hard – but I came through it, and I’m sure my body was grateful to me for having the willpower to stick it out.

And after that, it’s back to eating only raw foods during the day, and eating as much healthy stuff (cooked or raw) as I can in the evenings. Goodbye fried food, takeaways, cakes and crisps; hello maca, purple corn extract, baobab and camu-camu. We’ve been apart far too long.

I’m planning to blog every day during the detox; if you’d like to follow my progress and share your own experiences please do pop back here next week, or join the Raw Curious UK Facebook page.

I’ve been re-reading this post by Emma at Raw Food Scotland and it reminded me that I’ve been meaning for some time to write a post on how to manage introducing more raw, healthy foods into your life in your own time and in your own way.

Like Emma says, the information out there can be extremely overwhelming, and you do sometimes feel like it’s all weighing you down, as if you’re somehow not doing it ‘right’, and you wonder who you should be listening to. And really, the answer to that last bit is quite simple: you should be listening to YOU.

When you start out exploring the raw thing, you’re bound to be influenced by anybody and everybody who ever utters the word ‘raw’. What you tend to forget, however, is that these people aren’t living your life – YOU are.

Take Kate Magic, for example. I really admire this woman. She’s bringing up three kids, running Raw Living, posting to Kate’s Bubble, promoting herself on Facebook, and doing God knows how many talks and courses every week/month/year. Some of her recipes are really fab (I’m a big fan of her kale chips), but the vast majority of her recipes use several expensive ingredients, and some recipes use ridiculous amounts of superfoods. Some of the cakes on Raw Living cost over £30 each to buy ready-made – hardly surprising, given the number of superfoods in them. Unless you’re pretty wealthy, you’re not going to be able to afford all these ingredients, certainly not in the quantities you’d use if you lived entirely on Kate’s recipes. She’s a worthy ‘guru’, is Kate, but my life couldn’t be more different to hers.

Then there’s Shazzie – another one who laces everything with superfoods. The more cynical among us might say that this is because Shazzie and Kate both sell superfoods on their websites, so it’s in their interests to create recipes that mean people have to spend shitloads of money on ingredients. I’m not sure one way or another, to be honest; I like to believe the best things about people but these women are business owners, after all. I will say though, that in the beginning I quite admired Shazzie, but her heavy-handed sales tactics, non-stop sales emails, “American long copy”-style web pages selling e-books and courses, and the trying to actually sell herself as a spiritual guru quite frankly irritate the hell out of me.

For a while there I got really into Russell James. But all his recipes (a) consist mainly of nuts, which make my weight balloon, and (b) take half a week to make (I may be exaggerating a little there, but you know what I mean – gourmet raw is definitely best saved for special occasions or when you have a couple of days to spare).

Jason Vale is cool, but it’s all about the juice. I did his 7lbs in 7days program and was hungry, bored and miserable for a week. I lost 6lbs which was nice, but over the next few weeks the weight started to creep back up again (all lost again now, and back under control, and gradually reducing, thank God). I can’t live my life on just juice or just salad or just anything; I enjoy my food too much for that! Never again. I might do a 3 day juice cleanse once in a while in the future, but I’d never do a week of it again – not on your nellie!

I like Peter Pure too – he is bonkers in a good way – but the “bread is totally evil” thing leaves me a bit bemused. I lived with coeliac’s disease until I suddenly, unexpectedly, grew out of it at 16 (you’re supposed to have it for life, apparently – umm, not me!) so I’ve never developed a taste for bread, particularly – but I’m still partial to the occasional just-from-the-oven ciabatta dipped in top-notch olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I don’t do it often, but I reserve my right to do it if I fancy it!

In the beginning, when you’re still learning all your raw techniques and raw alchemy methods (who knew you could make a sweet ‘butter icing’ from cashews, or lime mousse from avocados?) it’s natural that you’ll be heavily influenced by others with more experience and knowledge. But as time goes on, here’s what you learn:

The only raw food guru you need is YOU.

Only YOU know what you like and dislike, what makes you itch or upsets your tummy or makes you put on (or lose) weight. Only YOU know how much time you can afford to spend on preparing a raw cake, or how much money you can afford to spend on ingredients.

You are all individuals! Bloody wonderful once you admit it, isn’t it? I absolutely insist that you press ‘play’ on this video, right now, for the best piece of advice that any ‘guru’ will ever give you. You can thank me in the comments, mkay?

Once you’ve learned what you need to learn – your basic raw techniques and all that – you will find you slip into your own natural raw rhythm. It doesn’t take long to discover that actually, you can manage pretty well without all the gurus, without quantum cake and without half a ton of he shou wou every day. In the beginning I was all about the dehydrated snacks and the superfoods (and doesn’t my bank account know it!) and the kale chips and non-stop bloody salad (and I still don’t enjoy salad very much, no matter how good it is for me; it’s something I eat because I should, rarely because I fancy it). But these days, my day goes pretty much like this:

Homeopathic remedy on waking, then cup of tea, then wheatgrass, barley grass and milk thistle in a big glass of water

Green juice for breakfast

As much water as I can manage thoughout the day (usually 3-4 pints a day)

A fabulous smoothie for lunch, which usually includes cacao powder because it’s a great way to hide the manky taste of maca, which I try to take daily, and I always pop other superfoods into it too

My fridge always has home made raw chocolate in it. That’s the law. I eat several chunks a day, safe in the knowledge it’s good for me.

When Dewi comes home he’ll often fancy a juice, so I’ll make one for both of us.

For dinner, I eat whatever I want to eat. Tonight it’s king prawns with salad and jacket potatoes. Last night it was a takeaway curry. Tomorrow night it’s leftover home made bulgar wheat paella (cooked it Saturday night and froze the leftovers – bulgar wheat is much healthier than rice and tastes bloody marvellous). With the exception of the takeaways (we’ll have one or two a month on average), everything I eat is made from fresh ingredients and I never, I repeat NEVER, eat ready meals.

And that’s the pattern I’ve settled into. It’s the right pattern for ME. I don’t feel the need to be any more raw than I am – not at the moment, anyway. I’m getting the benefits of all the bloody fabulous stuff I put into my body during the day – the juices, the water, the smoothies, the chocolate – but I’m also able to eat what I want for dinner. I still sit on my arse all day and don’t go out of my way to exercise – but I do work in the garden most weekends, and do housework, and go out shopping or whatever, so my weekends are usually pretty active. And the best thing is… I’m still losing weight. How fab is that? 16lbs so far this year, effortlessly. Fan-bloody-tastic!

People often don’t believe this, but I swear it’s true: the more good things you put in your body, the less you will crave bad things. I can’t remember the last time I fancied a bag of crisps or a packet of sweets. Genuinely. By the tail end of 2011 I was living on a diet (during the day anyway) that consisted of a bar of chocolate (usually a Snickers or a Bounty – check out Rebecca’s raw versions of these, by the way – they’re fab!), a packet of sweets (usually the old-fashioned shrimps and bananas, remember those? Pure sugar, ick!) and a packet of Wotsits. I can honestly say that since I started living more raw-ly, I have not once fancied any of these things. I genuinely can’t remember the last time I had a fizzy drink, or even wanted one (I used to love Red Bull, and if I was out and about I’d keep a 500ml bottle of diet coke in my handbag; these days it’s water all the way, baby!). Seriously – just keep piling the good stuff into your gob and the bad stuff will very soon become a bad memory.

That is the pattern I’ve settled into, and it works for me. But it probably won’t work for you. You have to find your own way. In the wise words of Brian: you don’t need to follow ANYBODY! You are all individuals! It’s time to be your own guru. Do what you know is best for YOU, find your own rhythm, and be the happy bunny you were born to be. And that is the closest to guruhood I am ever going to get

Wow, it’s almost a month to the day since my last post. Where’s the time gone?

Well let me tell you, most of it has been spent (when I’m not working, natch) hanging out at Raw Living and Kate’s Magic Bubble. I’ve got the raw food bug baby, and it’s one of the most exciting times of my entire life!

I’m dizzy in a haze of research and reading and talking to raw foodists and more reading and more research and more talking. Kate Magic herself (hellooo, big ol’ non-sexual girl-crush here, the woman’s a genius) answered a pretty big question I asked her about a medical problem I’ve lived with for years, which was brilliant. Unfortunately I can’t share a link because it’s behind a paywall at Kate’s Magic Bubble: membership costs £7.50 a month but for that you get access to dozens of amazing raw recipes, interviews, videos, articles and of course the chance to ask Kate a question and have it answered. And if that wasn’t enough, you also get 10% off every order at Raw Living once you’re a member of Kate’s Magic Bubble, so membership is worth every penny as far as I’m concerned. Well, having placed several large orders at Raw Living in recent weeks, I’m already seeing the benefits!

So, raw living, raw food – where’d that come from?

While nobody could ever accuse me of being a health nut, I have always preferred healthy foods to unhealthy ones. I did the GI diet for years and loved it; if I ate something processed (for example if I had dinner at someone else’s house) I’d feel sluggish and weird afterwards. Didn’t miss sugar at all because I was using Splenda instead, which did the job. But in recent years I’d drifted away from GI and started eating forbidden foods again; the worst of which, probably, was sugar (although it was generally unrefined demerera, it’s still a poison); as you’ll remember from this post about my tea drinking habits, I was getting through shocking amounts of the stuff; truly, shocking. At the beginning of this year, before I gave myself a good slap, I was getting through my working days on a combination of fags, tea, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and cheesy poofs (similar to Wotsits, but fatter and cheaper). I regularly skipped breakfast, and lunch, and rarely managed to hit my five a day.

Then Heather, my lovely homeopath, told me about raw chocolate. How you can eat it without feeling guilty. How it’s actually GOOD for you. So I started buying it, and then making it (recipes to follow – I’ve invented a couple of nice ones over the past few weeks).

But the more I looked at all these healthy raw ingredients and superfoods – mystical sounding substances like maca, shatavari, he shou wu, lucuma, ashwagandha and other bizarrely named stuff – the more fascinated I became. It’s like alchemy, sometimes; but even so it’s all very scientific, and makes a huge amount of sense once you start paying attention.

The idea of living on cold food 100% of the time, and giving up Sunday roasts, Thai curry and my other favourite dinners, doesn’t appeal, to be honest. But the beautiful thing about raw living is that you can do it gradually. Just replace as much crap as possible with as much fresh, organic produce and superfoods as you can manage, and you’re on the journey. Once your body starts to notice all these super-healthy treats you’re giving it, it asks for more, and stops wanting cooked food. Clever things, bodies. As Shazzie – another big raw food guru – says, you can gain two hours of energy per day just by being 50% raw. I find that pretty amazing and it’s something I’ve spent the past few weeks getting my head round, in preparation for starting my raw journey.

So, this week I’ve started properly. Having spent a small fortune on all manner of superfoods and raw and/or organic ingredients (the majority I’ve had to buy online, but I’ve also been making regular visits to our nearest decent health food shop, Dimensions in Upper Bangor), on Monday morning I went 50% raw. So my breakfast for the past couple of days has been this gorgeous rasperry-jelly-like dish of Kate’s called “chia up love” (pictured above), which is made of soaked chia seeds, superfoods and raspberries; I’ve been quaffing down pints of green smoothies; I’ve been snacking on home made trail mixes, and stuffing my face with salad (well the salad bit, to be fair, I’ve been doing for about two months; I tend to have a large salad with seeds for lunch most days). And so far, I feel fabulous!

Having slipped off the wagon with the smoking a couple of weeks ago (sorry to all those who cheered me on: I’m crap) at least I’m doing this one amazing thing for my body, and even two days in I feel more alive than I have in a very long time. I had an appointment with Heather this morning and she reckoned I look loads healthier, and I’ve alreadly lost 3lbs, having failed to lose anything at all while I wasn’t smoking and wasn’t eating raw.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still enjoying the same old lovely evening meals, with a couple of slight changes that are barely noticeable. For cooked food, if I need to use oil, I’ll now generally use virgin coconut oil because of the amazing health benefits (there is a post half-written in my head about why everyone should switch to virgin coconut oil, so I will have to tempt it out onto the screen and finish it off). If we have basmati rice – which is a big favourite of mine, so we tend to eat it at least 2-3 nights a week – I have smaller portions than I used to. The sauces are reasonably healthy anyway: coconut oil actually helps speed up the metabolism so it’s worth eating a tablespoon a day if possible. I love veg so having more veg than anything else on my plate, where appropriate (i.e. not with a chicken madras!) is no effort at all. And so I feel happy and balanced, getting the best of both worlds: raw during the day, cooked at night. My super-sugary Earl Grey consumption is at an all-time low (in an average week I’ll have maybe 5-6 cups, instead of drinking that much every single day like I used to) – my new favourite drink, which I can’t get enough of, is Clipper nettle tea, which is just gorgeous. And yes, I do drink water every day too!

So, that’s where I’ve been hiding: it’s been the funnest fact-finding mission ever, I have cupboards full of super-healthy ingredients, and a bunch more of them winging their way through the post as I type. My fridge is full of my raw creations and loads of fruit and veg. I’ve more or less ditched dairy completely; I don’t really eat bread so there’s no need for butter (there’s vegan olive spread in the fridge for Dewi and if I need to I’ll use that), I literally can’t remember the last time I ate cheese, and I’m only using a pint of organic skimmed milk a week. No cream, no yoghurt; almost dairy-free, and not missing it at all. Next week for lunch I’m going to try sea spaghetti (a special type of nutrient-packed seaweed) with a sauce made of pureed brazil nuts, from Kate’s free e-book which you can download at the Raw Living website in exchange for your email address, which Kate and co will not abuse! I’m also on the verge of splashing out on a dehydrator so I can make my own kale chips, flax crackers, onion bread and other raw delights – I’m really serious about this!

I’m going to have to stop rambling now before this post degenerates into total nonsense. I’ll have a think about how I can write about my raw journey in a more structured way, so that it’s a bit more useful to readers and easier to find what you’re looking for. I plan to write about the huge cost involved in buying some of the equipment, about some of the fantastic people I’ve encountered (big hello at this point to the amazing Emma Couttie at Raw Food Scotland, who is delightfully bonkers and a massive help and inspiration – I have a couple of her books to review, and let me tell you they are FAB), and I’ll also share my amazing paranoid conspiracy theory about why the government doesn’t do more to promote healthy eating (it’s all tied up with Big Pharma – google it – and eugenics… see, I *told* you it was paranoid!)

This is the beginning of something so amazing, so exciting, and writing about it is going to be a real blast Can you feel my excitement? Can you? CAN you? Mwahaha!

]]>http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/i-am-woman-hear-me-raw/feed/2Raw chocolate: stuff your face, feel no guilthttp://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/raw-chocolate-stuff-your-face-feel-no-guilt/
http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/raw-chocolate-stuff-your-face-feel-no-guilt/#commentsFri, 27 Jan 2012 20:04:31 +0000http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/?p=69A couple of sessions back, Heather and I were talking about my fondness for obsession with chocolate, and how it always seems to be my downfall whenever I attempt to diet. Once I’ve managed to wean myself off it I’m not too bad, but it’s getting weaned in the first place that’s the difficult bit (I mean, I did the GI diet for a couple of years and rarely ate anything naughty, so it is possible).

During this session, Heather mentioned something called ‘raw’ chocolate. I’d never heard of it before. She explained it’s where the cocoa – or cacao as it should be called – is only processed at very low temperatures, meaning all the very good stuff that chocolate naturally contains isn’t damaged (there’s a very good article here, if you can bring yourself to read the Daily Fail. If not, try this [older] Guardian one instead). Then it’s blended together with other super-healthy ingredients, like low-GI natural sweeteners (coconut sugar, agave nectar, etc), coconut cream (for creamier chocolates, similar to milk chocolate but of course completely dairy-free), and fruit (depending on which variety of chocolate you’re eating).

Ombar Probiotic Coconut (after I've been nibbling)

The result? Chocolate you don’t have to feel guilty about.

I know that sounds unbelievable, so I’m going to say it again, in case you thought your eyes were deceiving you: you can eat raw chocolate without feeling guilty!

Better even than that: raw chocolate, eaten as part of a balanced and healthy diet, is actually good for you. I know! Crazy, right?

When Heather first mentioned raw chocolate, months ago, I kind of forgot about it. It was coming up to Christmas so my money was all tied up with presents and feasting and what have you, and buying hippy dippy ‘healthy’ chocolate was the last thing on my mind. But a couple of weeks back, when The Regime started, I remembered Heather’s advice and did some digging around.

First thing I found was the online shop, The Raw Chocolate Shop. Here, I was able to get a feel for the different varieties of raw chocolate available, and see what people had to say about it. It turns out there are lots of different varieties of raw chocolate, and frankly they all sounded amazing. Then I took a look at Amazon, and discovered that I could get a 5-pack of Ombar Coconut Probiotic (one of the most popular varieties, from what I could gather) for not much more than a tenner, with free postage. So I ordered it, and it arrived about 11 days ago.

Let me tell you: this stuff is bloody delicious! It’s very intensely chocolately, somewhere between dark and milk chocolate (as I said in my review on Amazon, it’s very similar to Hotel Chocolat’s House 50%, which was my favourite until I discovered Ombar). It has a dry, crumbly texture, melts beautifully on the tongue, and just spreads its chocolatey deliciousness throughout your mouth, leaving you feeling like you’re on an amazing chocolate high. Now, this stuff is low GI, so you don’t get energy peaks and dips when you eat it, which is great; you just feel wonderful because of the intense chocolateyness, rather than because of a sugar rush, which is just what the doctor (or herbalist!) ordered.

Needless to say, I have in fact scoffed the lot. In my defence, at 38g each, these bars of chocolate are tiny; but so intense that you don’t need much to satisfy your craving.

Ombar Probiotic Coconut: small, but perfectly formed

Today my latest parcel of raw chocolate arrived, which this time I ordered from the Raw Chocolate Shop direct because I wanted to mix and match the flavours a bit. Unfortunately the strawberry probiotic was out of stock so I will have to wait until next time for that. In this parcel was the acai and blueberry variety, which is much darker and stronger than the coconut bar (and slightly more bitter, with a very slight hint of fruit); the goji berry, which I haven’t tried yet; and a bar by a different maker, Conscious, which is really gorgeous. If you like Turkish delight you’ll probably love Conscious Love Potion No. 9, which is flavoured with essential oil of rose. It has a softer texture than the Ombar bars, and the bar is made in chunkier pieces too, which makes it easier to stuff your face!

I’m so glad Heather pointed me in the direction of raw chocolate. The bars I’ve tried so far are so amazingly tasty, and so virtuous, that I’m going to order a book about making raw chocolates (you can buy a lot of the ingredients at health food shops, including online ones like the very interesting Detox Your World) and set about making some virtuous creations of my own. But that doesn’t mean I will stop scoffing my Ombars; now I’ve discovered them, I think it’s fair to say we’ll be friends for life!

]]>http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/raw-chocolate-stuff-your-face-feel-no-guilt/feed/3Dru barley grasshttp://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/dru-barley-grass/
http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/dru-barley-grass/#commentsFri, 27 Jan 2012 10:11:42 +0000http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/?p=61When I was visiting the Conwy Feast in October last year, I came across a stall selling Dru barley grass. It’s not something I would normally have paid that much attention to, at that time (though I would now, of course); but the posters were eye-catching and what really caught my eye was the claims that barley grass could help improve psoriasis and help with weight loss.

They were handing out free samples (i.e. a teeny shot of the stuff, mixed with apple juice) and in a small quantity like that, it tasted OK. Alright, it was never going to taste as good as chocolate or chips, but as green gunge went, it was passable. So, I handed over eight quid and bought a tin of it.

Now, when I told Heather about it, she was really pleased. She swears by barley grass as a detoxifier and cleanser, and also said that it’s great for alkalising the body and is full of all sorts of really good wholesome stuff and trace minerals.

As you can see from the photo, barley grass looks a bit mad. It looks radioactive! And however you imagine it tastes, from looking at the photo – yes, it does taste like that. Like something a cow might have vomited up. And that’s when it’s mixed with apple juice; mix it with water and it really is vile. I’ve just spotted something about that photo that made me giggle, actually; see the glass I’ve made the oh-so-healthy-and-virtuous green gunge in? It’s not a proper drinking glass. It’s an empty Nutella jar that we use as a glass. Hehehe

Is this stuff making any difference to my health? To be honest, I have no idea. When I drink it, despite the slight ickiness of it, it does feel as if it brightens me up a bit. It’s not doing any harm anyway, apart from one slightly yucky side effect which is that it can make your poo have a slightly greenish tinge sometimes. But if you can live with doing alien poos and drinking cow vomit, it’s probably worth sticking with!

Incidentally, I used to be friends with the marketing lady for Dru; we were on the CIM marketing diploma course together at Coleg Menai, but lost touch after we graduated. Samia, if your Analytics stats have led you here, hello! If you want to get in touch and do a bit of catching up, it’s hello@fortysomethingfatso.net

]]>http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/dru-barley-grass/feed/0Tea of the week: camomile, honey and vanillahttp://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/tea-of-the-week-camomile-honey-and-vanilla/
http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/tea-of-the-week-camomile-honey-and-vanilla/#commentsFri, 27 Jan 2012 09:48:42 +0000http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/?p=56As I’m trying to keep off the ‘proper’ tea for the sake of my remedies (and because of the amount of sugar I was taking with my tea), I’m trying a lot of different herbal infusions and fruit teas at the moment. I thought it might be an idea to have a ‘tea of the week’ spot here at Forty-Something Fatso, to give me an excuse to review some of the teas I’ve been drinking.

This week is the turn of Twining’s camomile, honey and vanilla.

Twinings camomile, honey and vanilla - mmm, lovely :)

This has a very subtle taste and is very refreshing. The scent of honey is delicious, and though the tea doesn’t taste very strongly of anything, the mellowness of this tea is very pleasing.

I’m struggling a lot with the stopping smoking at the moment. Oh, not in a way that means I will be tempted to have a ciggie – God forbid! – it’s just that I’m very tense with it, there’s a huge knot in my stomach that won’t go away and I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Camomile tea is therefore a very good way to help me relax a little, though I have got to the point where I’ve had to ask Heather to recommend emergency remedies before I kill somebody! She’s suggested Avena Sativa, so I ordered that late last night and hopefully it will arrive before I do anybody any real damage!

I’ve been drinking plenty of water, because I know I oughta. I like the way that sentence sounds, and it reminded me of this classic 80s ad, which I’ve never stopped finding funny. Like the lady in the ad says: Golly!

I’ve never been a fan of water, as a drink (as a substance for bathing in, on the other hand, water is wonderful). It doesn’t have enough flavour, for a start, so it doesn’t quench my thirst properly. That’s probably because 30 years of smoking has done something awful and irrepairable to my mouth. I thought that stopping smoking might have reversed this damage, but apparently not (though I suppose it may still happen).

At my last session with Heather, we talked about my tea habit and why I don’t drink water.

When I first started going to see Heather, last May I think it was, I’d been using Splenda as a sweetener in my tea for years. It tasted good, and had (so they said) all natural ingredients that were derived from real sugar and so there would be no compromise where taste was concerned, even though the stuff is virtually calorie-free. However, Heather was aghast, and told me there had been all sorts of horror stories about Splenda and encouraged me to do a big of Googling, which I did. Now I will say I didn’t find any conclusive proof that Splenda is responsible for cancer or making your nipples fall off or any of the other rather dramatic claims made about it (OK, I made up the nipples thing), but I was keen to eliminate a few ‘bad’ things out of my life to help my fibroid remedies have a better chance of working, so I switched from Splenda to demerera sugar (it’s not as processed as white sugar so I thought it was a good bet).

Now that’s all well and good when you’re drinking a couple of normal-sized cups of tea a day. But I was drinking pints of milky, sweet Earl Grey. I was drinking anywhere from five to ten pints a day, at a guess, with three heaped teaspoons of sugar in each mug. So that’s anything from fifteen to thirty teaspoons of sugar a day; no wonder I was putting on so much weight! Dewi only takes one level teaspoon of sugar in his coffee, and only drinks one or two cups a day, yet we were I was getting through close to a kilo of sugar a week. Terrible, isn’t it?

My pint of tea, next to a normal-sized mug. I was drinking 5-10 pints of tea a day, with 3 sugars per mug.

Incredibly, I hadn’t given it a second thought, the amount of sugar I was imbibing each day. I was so hooked on my tea – or, now I really think about it, probably the sugar – I had convinced myself that it was my lifeblood, the only thing that kept me functioning. When, at my last session, Heather recommended I stop drinking tea (or cut down very drastically) because it may be interfering with my fibroid remedies, I went into rebel mode and was quite upset and stubborn. “I’m happy to stop smoking,” I told her; “I’ll stop eating chips, and chocolate, and live on salad and hippy dippy raw foods and fucking seeds, but I’d rather have that hysterectomy the doctor’s threatening than give up my tea.” I didn’t mean it, of course; that’s just how addicts talk, when they’re trying to justify their habit and the ‘benefits’ they gain from it.

Heather, gentle and patient as ever (how does she put up with me?), suggested that if I can’t give up tea completely, first of all I could drink more ‘infusions’ and herbal teas (she recommended nettle, which is actually really nice), and said that perhaps I should just cut down, and use stevia instead of sugar. Hmm, thought I; that’s a compromise I can live with. And it just so happened that stevia, which is apparently still banned from being advertised as for human consumption in the UK, because that’s the way the big bad pharmaceutical companies manipulate health departments and governments, is the main ingredient in this new sweetener called Truvia, which during the very week that Heather and I were having this conversation, was being launched and advertised all over the telly.

Truvia is not cheap; a little plastic pot costs nearly a fiver. However, it’s three times sweeter than sugar, so you only need a teaspoon’s worth to get the equivalent sweetness of three teaspoons of sugar – which means you use less, so you buy it less often. On the plus side, it’s virtually calorie free, and claims to be completely natural (stevia is a plant; the sweetener is obtained, I believe, by boiling the leaves then drying out the resulting sweet water and turning it into sugar-like granules). On the downside, it tastes bloody vile and leaves a horrible aftertaste like Sweetex. (Also worth reading this review of Truvia on Amazon, which I hadn’t seen before – looks like Truvia is not as virtuous as I thought it was, so I may change to agave nectar instead. Bah.).

[Further update: I should’ve just done what Heather originally suggested, i.e. buy stevia liquid extract and use a drop at a time, instead of worrying about being able to measure it out by the teaspoon like sugar. The one I’ve linked to here is only £2 a bottle, so I think when the Truvia runs out I’ll replace it with the drops. At that price, I don’t mind putting up with the icky aftertaste!]

I don’t know if it’s the horrible Truvia that’s making my tea so unsatisfying that I drink less of it (I have another theory about why I’m off the tea – I’ll get to that in a minute), but since the new regime kicked in I sometimes go a whole day without a cuppa, and instead of getting through upwards of 12 pints of skimmed milk a week I’m now getting through fewer than 2 pints (I keep having to throw milk away because it’s gone off). More likely, though, is the fact that tea was very much tied to smoking for me; I couldn’t really enjoy a fag properly without a nice milky, sweet, pint of Earl Grey. It quenched my thirst, and as any smoker will tell you, smoking when you’re thirsty is really unpleasant, and I reckon that’s why since I’ve stopped smoking I don’t feel the need for tea like I used to. Breaking one harmful addiction has helped me break another, which I find very interesting. I don’t even fancy coffee that often any more either; I used to like one or two normal-sized mugs a day, just for a change (no sugar in coffee though, ever), but since I stopped smoking I really don’t fancy it that often. I’m not supposed to have it anyway, because it interferes with the remedies and the milk thistle (liver detox stuff), so it’s probably just as well that I don’t need or want it.

So what’s all this got to do with water?

Well, Heather was concerned that I didn’t drink any water, that all my fluids were coming from tea. She was really very keen for me to get more water into my body, even if it meant drinking herbal teas and fruit infusions. So I’m being a good girl, forcing a few large glasses of water into myself every day, in between mugs of things like camomile and spiced apple, nettle tea, and other tea substitutes. My water and herbal/fruity teas/infusions intake is probably about four pints a day in total, compared to an average of eight pints of milky tea (and another benefit of stopping the Earl Grey is the improvement in bladder function; I’m not constantly on the loo like I used to be, because of course caffeine is a diuretic so I used to be a one-woman pee factory).

The point that I’ve taken so long to get to (sorry!) is that I still don’t like water, even since stopping smoking (I thought having a clean mouth instead of ashtray breath might change things, but it didn’t). I drink water because I have to, because Heather tells me to, because I know my body should have it.

The water in Majorca don’t taste like it oughta, apparently; they should try the water in Clynnog, it just tastes of water and that’s probably the most boring taste in the whole wide world!

]]>http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/drinking-water-because-i-oughta/feed/2Using homeopathy to stop smokinghttp://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/using-homeopathy-to-stop-smoking/
http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/using-homeopathy-to-stop-smoking/#commentsMon, 23 Jan 2012 15:31:43 +0000http://www.fortysomethingfatso.net/?p=38I was a smoker for 30 years, until stopping two weeks ago. (By the way, I’m with Allen Carr on this one: it’s better to think of it as ‘stopping’ or ‘quitting’ smoking, rather than ‘giving up’, because giving up implies some form of sacrifice, which quitting something so vile and unhealthy shouldn’t be).

I started at age 11 and a half. It started because these kids at school started bullying me, by bundling me into corners and having a sly feel of my girly bits. It got so bad that I told my mum and she reported it to the head of year. Because they’d been rumbled, the bullies made my life hell in other ways, ways in which it was harder for them to be caught. Little sly, whispered insults as I walked past. Spreading rumours about me. Getting other people who hadn’t been implicated in the original attacks to start jumping on me instead. Et cetera.

I was hanging out with this girl at the time who I thought was pretty cool. Jess, her name was. She was a smoker, and always hung out with other cool people at the secret places at school where smokers always hang out. Everyone respected Jess; she was never bullied, never picked on. She was intelligent and worked hard in class, but was never called a geek or swot or “big head” (that was my nickname for 5 years of secondary school) and in my little head that was because she was a cool smoker who hung out with other cool smokers. So I started smoking, so I could be cool too. The bullying didn’t stop, but it was too late: I was hooked.

I’m sure this story is familiar to lots of smokers and ex-smokers. As is the story of the number of times I’ve attempted to stop smoking, over the years. I’ve tried self-help books, hypnotherapy CDs, cold turkey, nicotine replacement therapy (tabs, gum and patches, all of which just made me smoke more), and some vile spray that was supposed to make cigarettes taste horrible, but didn’t.

The key thing connecting all these failed attempts at smoking cessation is my mental attitude.

Every single time I tried to stop smoking in the past, I always felt it was something I ought to do, rather than something I passionately *wanted* to do. It was the right thing to do for my health, my daughter, my purse, my wheezing cats, the stains on the ceiling, the stains on my fingers; always the right thing, but never something I really embraced or looked forward to, or was properly committed to.

This time is very different.

The fact that I’ve gone two whole weeks without falling off the wagon is amazing enough (I’ve been known to smoke 20 fags while wearing a 21mg nicotine patch). But the fact that I actually feel great – and have felt great throughout – is nothing short of miraculous.

Two things are different this time. First, I really wanted to stop. I wanted to not be a slave to nicotine, to the companies that profit from smoking, and from the government that profits from the vast amount of tax that smokers pay whenever they buy a pack of cigs. And secondly, I’ve been using homeopathic remedies – two little pills, six times a day – prescribed by Heather, the homeopathic angel that I visit monthly to help with healing my fibroids.

Now, I don’t know what’s in these pills, and even if I did you wouldn’t be able to just rush out and buy them because they’re prescribed for me specifically (homeopathy works that way: Heather prescribed remedies based on things I told her about what I’m like when I’m craving nicotine). But I will ask Heather to pop by and leave a comment explaining a bit more about how these pills work, because I have to tell you – they DO work. They work for me, and considering my past habit I’m pretty amazed and very impressed. Yes, I do get the odd craving; you know the feeling, that little knot in your stomach and the feeling that you need to take a sudden, sharp intake of breath. But the amazing thing is, these cravings literally do not bother me. My brain just says, all matter of fact like, “oh it’s just a craving; it’ll pass”. And it does!

OK, it’s early days yet; I’ve only been stopped for two weeks. But I’ll tell you this: it’s the longest I have ever gone without smoking, and that’s very encouraging indeed.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone else who’s successfully stopped smoking with the help of homeopathy. Please leave a comment if that’s you!